Study Abroad Student You Met Is Actually Just From Kentucky

It often seems that there are two types of students on Florida State’s campus: students from Bumfuck, Central Florida, or those out-of-state overachievers whose enrollment at the university often begs the question, “how much financial aid did they offer to trick you into coming here?” Those belonging to the latter category can be incredibly fascinating to Floridians who can’t understand why one would willingly reside in this great country’s sweaty armpit. Thrown off by what is either the whisper of an accent or a cry for help, many in-state students are shocked to learn that Kentucky isn’t some exotic, foreign country but rather a chicken-tender-sized hell hole where a third of the population consists solely of mules and guys named “Chip.”

“Her accent was like nothing I’d ever heard before. She used ‘derby’, ‘whiskey’ and ‘bluegrass’ all in one sentence. Can you blame me? This isn’t nearly as bad as the time I thought Delaware was in Europe,” said Marrissa Terrance, a born-and-raised Floridian, while flipping through her copy of the Disney character autograph book given to all Floridian children at birth. Thanks to a K-12 education system that only works in the half of the state people actually care about, Terrance was at first completely unaware of her classmates place of origin. “It took a full 20 minutes of conversation for me to realize that when she was talking about having a ‘wild turkey’ in her backyard, she didn’t mean the bourbon. I thought Florida was supposed to be the scary state.”

“Once she started making jabs at my European lifestyle, I just couldn’t stop myself from playing along,” said Sharon Littleton, decked head-to-toe in Simply Southern apparel. “When she asked me what the best food from my country was, she seemed surprised when I said it was Kentucky Fried Chicken. But in all seriousness, I would like to speak for all out-of-state students when I say: we are not our stereotypes and don’t need all of our attributes to be boiled down to a bunch of assumptions,” said Littleton before opening her backpack to reveal a bundle of handwritten love letters from an unknown party that suspiciously shares her last name. 

While getting to know your new peers at the start of the semester is a tedious task, it is also certainly a great way to plant the seeds of friendship. Asking someone’s major, hometown, and fun facts are still probably the worst ice breakers behind ‘are you old enough to buy me a pack of White Claws?’ Nevertheless, it seems that is the only sincere conversation most of us will have with our fellow classmates from syllabus week on. That is, until, the first exam comes around and the class GroupMe gets into its full swing.